


april showers, april snow storms

by ephemeralsky



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Airports, Alternate Universe - No Exy (All For The Game), Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Don't copy to another site, M/M, me? mashing up a soulmate and stranded-at-an-airport au together? more likely than you think
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-23
Updated: 2020-02-23
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:21:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22868563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ephemeralsky/pseuds/ephemeralsky
Summary: “Do you believe in fate, Neil?” Andrew asks, blasé.“Not really, no,” Neil answers gamely, even though Andrew had asked something very similar at the cafe.“Luck, then.”“Only the bad sort.”“And yet you do not cease to ruminate over the notion of soulmates.”“Has anybody ever told you that you speak like someone from a different time period altogether?” Neil deflects.(or: Andrew and Neil are soulmates who are stranded at an airport during a snow storm)
Relationships: Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Comments: 124
Kudos: 981





	april showers, april snow storms

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nightquills](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightquills/gifts).



> Written for @nightquills as part of the AFTG Valentine's Exchange 2020. I hope you like this! Sorry it's late.
> 
> CW: mentions of violence, description of scars.  
> Please don’t hesitate to let me know if there is anything else that I need to add.

Being a writer requires more travelling than Andrew initially thought.

As he stands in the middle of a bustling crowd in O’Hare International Airport, Andrew adjusts the strap of his laptop bag, swallowing down a tired sigh. Neck craned, he scans the flight information board.

Flight D1003 to San Francisco at 7.15 pm is cancelled. 

Irritation coils around the top of his spine and tingles the back of his neck. He doesn’t move from the front of the board, staring apathetically at the bright letters and numbers as he plans his next move. He could go back to the hotel he just checked out of, but he doubts he could make it out of the airport very easily with the storm raging outside. Even if he could book a cab, he might have to wait a while for it to pick him up. He could probably spend the night at the airport. That way, he won’t have to deal with cutting back and forth through the city and shuffling through another round of security check. 

He’s been at the airport for four hours now, monitoring the status of his flight and growing more and more agitated as it kept getting delayed. 

And now he finds out that it’s cancelled.

He swallows down another tired sigh. 

It’s mid-April. 

Aprils are always hard for him, and it’s mostly due to the fickleness of the weather, that cusp between winter and spring - two of his least favorite seasons. He had assumed that the snowstorms would have stopped by the end of February, but clearly he had been mistaken. 

The unpredictability of the weather is a detriment he could live without. He likes things to be predictable, despite the mundanity of it all, because he can prepare for things that he can predict; contain them, exert some control over them. Having things thrown at him without warning is not fun at all. 

The other reason Aprils are hard for him is -

“A blizzard in the middle of April,” a voice beside him says. “Who would’ve thought?”

Andrew freezes. He feels like his heart has stopped, his blood as cold as the ice outside. Immediately, tension builds and crests within his muscles as the words etched on his neck go warm, buzzing like he’s been stung.

It’s not possible. He has told himself that it’s not possible ever since he was thirteen, ‘monster’ a newly bestowed sobriquet and a reminder that he is not like other people, that he will never be happy or find somebody who will accept him, that he will never meet his soulmate. 

Because monsters don’t have souls. 

But it’s in the middle of April. There is a blizzard outside. The words he thought he will never hear are heard. 

Slowly, he turns his head towards the man beside him. He instantly regrets it. 

The man is looking at the flight information board, but his profile is eye-catching enough. He has deep red hair and icy blue eyes, and Andrew would have described his features as delicate if not for the burn scar underneath his left eye, the skin warped like melted plastic. It makes him more than eye-catching; it makes him _interesting_ , which is the last thing Andrew needs. 

Andrew forces his body to relax. He should keep quiet and not give the stranger a response. That way, he won’t have to find out if the man is really his soulmate. That way, he won’t have to find out if someone like him could even have a soulmate. That way, he could save this man from the burden of having Andrew Minyard as a soulmate. 

Instead, he says, “Climate change experts. That’s who.”

Andrew can pinpoint the exact moment the man realizes that his soulmate is standing right next to him. He stiffens, his shoulders tensing with a jerk. He inhales a deep, steady breath and releases it gradually, chest rising and falling, before he swivels towards Andrew. His eyes are sharp and disconcertingly pale. His lips are plump and extremely distracting. 

“Here out of all places and now out of all times,” he mutters, a hint of resignation in his voice. But then he gives a small shake of his head. There are more scars on his right cheek, thin and faded. “I guess it’s bound to happen one way or another.”

They spend the next few minutes staring at each other, neither saying a word. 

A female voice delivers an announcement through the speakers. A harried man nearly bumps into the trolley rack as he rushes towards a gate. A child laughs as she is dragged around on top of a wheeled suitcase. 

Much to Andrew’s surprise, he is the first one to break. 

“Say something,” he tells the man who is supposedly his soulmate.

The man raises an eyebrow, but he complies. “I don’t really know what to say other than I’m glad I didn’t say something like ‘Well, fuck all this weather hullabaloo’. If those words were stamped across your body somewhere, I’d be embarrassed for you.” 

Andrew is mightily unamused, but then again, he was the one who told the man to speak.

The man then tilts his head to the side, eyes going hard and suspicious as he regards Andrew. “Is it really you?”

“Why would I lie?”

“People lie all the time.”

Andrew gives the man a long, impassive stare. The man, much to his credit, is completely unfazed and continues scrutinizing him. 

Andrew presses his lips together and clenches his hands. He hooks a finger into the collar of his black turtleneck sweater and pulls it down. He lets the man look at the words nestled at the base of his neck, just above his collarbones. 

The man hums, pacified. 

“Show me yours,” Andrew says, pulling his collar back up. 

A smirk curls around the corner of the man’s lips, wispy and enigmatic like smoke. 

“I think it would be public indecency if I showed it to you now.”

If Andrew wasn’t intrigued before, he definitely is now. 

The man sighs. His gaze flits around them before settling back on Andrew. “So, what now, Andrew Minyard?”

The tension returns to Andrew’s body in full force, rising and swelling like a tsunami. 

“Relax,” the man says, somehow noticing Andrew’s discomfort. He nudges his chin towards Andrew’s coat. “Your boarding pass is sticking out of your pocket.”

Andrew looks down at his coat and confirms that yes, his boarding pass - with his name printed out in clear, black ink - is jutting out of his pocket and threatening to fall out. He folds it in half and shoves it deep into his pocket before saying, “How observant of you.”

The mysterious smirk makes a reappearance. “What can I say? It’s one of my many special talents.” 

Andrew decides that he doesn’t like this man and his interesting scars and his stupid smirks.

“And what is a man as talented as you called?”

“Neil,” the man - his soulmate - replies. His blue eyes look as if they’re glittering, but it might just be a trick of the light. “Call me Neil.”

*

Neil leads him to the service counter to have their tickets renewed for a different flight. The person at the desk apologetically tells them that the earliest available flight to San Francisco is tomorrow afternoon and that the plane can only depart if the blizzard clears out by morning. Neil says that that’s good enough, and they get new boarding passes without extra charges. 

“So,” Neil says again after he stows his ticket, “what now, Andrew?”

Andrew doesn’t answer, but he strides towards a cafe that is bookended by a travel gear shop and a pizza joint. Neil follows.

Everything they sell at an airport is overpriced, but Andrew is exhausted and hungry. He is also wired from having just met his soulmate, and he is going to need a lot of energy to sort his thoughts out. 

They nab a secluded booth in the corner of the cafe after placing their orders at the counter. Andrew places his laptop bag beside him on the bench, his carry-on suitcase parked beside the table. Neil has a duffel bag with him, and he drops it underneath the table, resting his calves against it as if he’s scared that somebody is going to run by and steal it. He has a leather messenger bag with him, something simple and professional-looking, which he unceremoniously dumps beside him on the bench. 

Slouching in his seat, Neil taps an uneven rhythm on the table, his expression subdued but his gaze alert and loud. 

It makes Andrew’s skin crawl. 

He fishes out his cigarette pack and shakes a stick out, popping it into his mouth. He doesn’t light it though, and it earns him a small quirk of Neil’s eyebrow.

The cashier who took their order a few minutes ago - a gangly boy who’s probably not even of legal drinking age yet - materializes at their table. Nervously, he says, “Sir, you can’t smoke here.” 

“He’s not smoking though, is he?” Neil asks glibly, sounding almost amused. His eyes remain on Andrew. 

“N-no,” the cashier stammers, “I suppose he’s not.”

Neil’s lips twitch. He looks at the kid, propping a hand under his chin as he smiles, all teeth. It’s meant to be charming, but Andrew thinks it looks threatening more than anything. “Then we have no problem here, right?”

The cashier looks defeated. “No, sir.” 

He excuses himself, and Neil ducks his head a little, hand covering his mouth. His eyes are crinkled at the corners like he has the widest smile hidden underneath his palm. Something hot and stuffy burrows under Andrew’s sternum.

“Do you make a habit out of tormenting restaurant employees?” he asks in a bored tone.

Neil drops his hand from his face and settles it on the table. The trace of a smile lingers across his lips, faint and sweet like spun sugar. 

“I wouldn’t have had to do that if you didn’t have a cigarette sticking out of your mouth in a no-smoking zone.” He waves a hand in the air. “I’ll leave him a huge tip later. The customer service industry in this country is brutal and fucked up.”

“A champion of the working-class people, are we?”

“More like a champion of basic human decency.”

How dull, Andrew thinks. Neil sounds like one of those shallow people who think that being socially conscious is trendy and advantageous for their image. He doesn’t see how this man could be his soulmate when he is losing Andrew’s interest not five minutes into their conversation.

“I can see from the fading focus in your eyes that this isn’t a topic you’re particularly passionate about,” Neil says, face a picture of wryness. 

At least he’s smart-mouthed and perceptive. He’ll be a good source of entertainment while Andrew is stranded at the airport. The fact that he’s easy on the eyes is just a bonus. 

“Everybody likes to wax poetry about justice,” Andrew replies blandly. “But not everybody wants to get their hands dirty and actually fight for it.” 

Something dangerous flashes through Neil’s eyes, there and gone like the glint of a blade. “Who says I haven’t gotten my hands dirty from fighting the good fight?”

The words above Andrew’s collarbones grow warm again, alive and ferocious. He finds it insurmountably annoying.

“Anyway,” Neil says, suddenly flippant. He switches demeanors like a person changes clothes. “We should figure out if we’re spending the night here.”

Andrew takes the cigarette out of his mouth and tucks it into his pocket for later. “There is no ‘we’.”

“Isn’t there?” Neil challenges coolly. “We might be stuck here until tomorrow. Even I can admit that having some company to share the burden of this torture is pretty nice.”

Unbidden, Andrew’s eyes automatically flicker towards the burn scar on Neil’s left cheekbone. Neil notices, and something unreadable passes through his expression, gone as quickly as it came. 

“I guess it’s true when they say that a face can tell a thousand stories, huh?” he muses, light and uncaring. His hands, covered in a litter of scars, are on the table. He shrugs, aiming for nonchalance. He mostly succeeds. “I suppose having your flight canceled isn’t as painful as actual physical torture.” 

Andrew says nothing, even though there are several things to unpack from that. He has the sudden impulse to scratch at his own scars, hidden underneath layers of clothes and black armbands. 

Neil interlocks his fingers together, stretching his arms above his head. He groans in satisfaction when his back pops, and Andrew’s hand spasms from where it lies hidden on his thigh. 

“But what can I say?” Neil says, propping his palm under his chin again. “Living like an ordinary person for the past decade has given me a different perspective on things.”

There are definitely several things to unpack from _that_ , but before Andrew can open his mouth, someone announces their order numbers. 

“I’ll get it,” Neil volunteers, sliding out of the booth. He returns with their food - hot cocoa and a warm cinnamon roll for Andrew, tea and a ham sandwich for himself - and they begin eating. ‘Eating’ might be too strong a word for what Neil is doing, though; he only takes a few bites of his sandwich before he abandons it on his plate. He doesn’t sweeten his tea, cradling the cup between his palms, looking at Andrew with a contemplative gaze. Andrew ignores his stare and cuts his cinnamon roll into bite-sized pieces, methodically eating each one with a fork. 

“What do you do for a living?” Neil asks. 

Andrew takes his time chewing and wiping his mouth with a napkin. He sips his hot cocoa, deeming it sufficiently sweet. He rearranges his cutlery on his plate after sweeping some crumbs off the table and onto the floor. Neil probably knows he’s doing all this on purpose, if the pointed expression on his face is anything to go by. 

“Must I do something for a living?” Andrew finally says. “Can’t I just exist as I am, free of any financial constraints?”

“That’s the dream right there, but capitalism is a bitch, isn’t it?”

Andrew picks up a packet of sugar and tears it open, dumping the contents onto the table. “Your questions are boring,” he says bluntly, “and I don’t feel like answering them.”

“Well, I don’t exactly have a list of interrogative and scintillating questions to ask in preparation for when I meet my soulmate,” Neil says. “I used to think I’d never live long enough to meet them, and then I just sort of thought that I’m probably better off never meeting them even if I live a long life.”

Andrew picks up a second packet of sugar, but doesn’t tear it open, hand frozen mid-air. 

How many Aprils has he slogged through, apprehension steadily feeding off of him like a parasite as the dates went by? And as soon as mid-April passes, he would revert back to being calm and unflappable, acceptance and disappointment warring within him as another year goes by without him meeting his soulmate. 

He has lived in Californian coastal cities all his life. He tells himself it is because he can’t be bothered to move out of the state, but a part of him - the tiny, stupid, naive part of him that believes there must be _some_ point to all this - knows that it’s because he is scared. 

He is scared of letting himself be wrong, of opening up the opportunity that he will meet his soulmate on a cold April day in a city that snows. 

It is easier to be alone. It is easier to resign himself to the fact that he will always be alone. 

Apparently, Neil thinks the same.

Andrew compartmentalizes this thought and dunks the sugar into his mug. “Do you not believe in the inevitability of soulmates?”

Neil scoffs, stirring his sugarless tea. “I don’t believe in a lot of things.”

“Oh?” Andrew says, monotonous. “Do tell.”

Neil leans forward, folding his arms on the table. “If I tell you, you need to tell me too.” His eyes are like sapphires; gemstones that glitter under a blinding sun. Andrew still thinks that it’s probably the lighting playing tricks on him. “It’s only fair that way, right?”

Andrew neatly disacknowledges the heat emanating through the collar of his turtleneck. So Neil knows about fairness and operates approximately the same way that Andrew does - that doesn’t really mean anything to him. 

He cradles his jaw in his palm, appraising. After a while, he says, “I do not believe that your soulmate completes you.”

“Neither do I,” Neil responds, sipping his tea. He watches Andrew over the rim of his mug, then places it on the table with a clink. “I think that we’re made for ourselves. If you do have a soulmate, it just means that they understand you, and maybe they complement you, but they don’t make you whole. We’ve been told that our bodies contain one half of a complete soul, but what does that even mean anyway?” His expression is thoughtful as he shrugs. “I think you’re the only one who can make yourself whole.”

“No man is an island,” Andrew murmurs, drinking his hot cocoa. It’s lukewarm now, but he finds that he doesn’t mind it. 

Neil’s cheek twitches as if he were withholding a smile. “I suppose no one is. But thinking that you need other people’s support isn’t the same as thinking that you’re not complete without your soulmate, or that you can never be happy without them.”

Andrew doesn’t think he’ll be happy either way; he is still struggling to understand the concept of happiness, dissecting it through the ephemeral snatches of tranquility and contentment he has felt the last few years. He feels like it will always be out of his grasp, just within reach. 

He refuses to believe that his soulmate is the missing piece to the puzzle. His soulmate isn’t his answer, and he sure as fuck isn’t anyone else’s.

Andrew holds Neil’s gaze as he asks, “Then what is the point of this?” 

“There’s no ‘this’,” Neil answers fluidly. Andrew’s pulse jumps a little, but he maintains his air of indifference. 

“We’re just talking, trying to get to know each other,” Neil continues. “Since we’ve both made it abundantly clear that the concept of soulmates doesn’t mean much to us, we can just use this time to see what the hype is all about - see if it’s as great as people make it out to be.” The half-smile gracing Neil’s lips has a sarcastic edge to it. “And when we board the plane tomorrow, we can go back to our own lives. You can pretend this never happened, if you wish.”

“I don’t wish for anything,” Andrew says.

“How stoic of you,” Neil comments, looking at Andrew as if he could see right through him. 

Andrew throws back the last of his hot cocoa and gathers his things. Neil doesn’t even appear harried as he picks up his bags and follows Andrew out of the cafe. Having no inkling to where he is going, Andrew takes a left, dragging his suitcase beside him. Neil walks next to him, silent until they pass by a corridor with huge windows on both sides. 

“Look,” Neil says, before he zips past Andrew and presses up against the windows. His breath fogs the glass up as he quietly says, “It’s beautiful.”

A flurry of snow barrels against the windows, sprinting across the tarmac and tornadoing against the idle airplanes. It’s difficult to see anything, the thick snow eclipsing everything it can touch, the sky a tenebrous grey curtain.

“I like the snow,” Neil murmurs, almost to himself. Andrew cuts him an unimpressed look, disgusted by his poor taste, but his attention is fully ensnared by the tempestuous weather outside. He has his palms flat against the windows, lips half-parted, eyelashes fluttering as he slowly blinks. 

Andrew’s throat hurts. He feels like he is treading on thin ice, like he is in grave danger. His heart is calm, a complete opposite to the chaos that is transpiring outside and everywhere else in his body. He tears his gaze away from Neil, keeps it fixated on a point beyond the glass windows. 

The two of them stay there for a long time.

*

“What about this one?” Neil asks for the third time. 

Andrew slides a disinterested glance his way, then turns back to surveying the cheap sunglasses on the rack in front of him.

“No?” Neil inquires. “Damn. And here I thought this one is better than the rest.” He inspects himself in the mirror, turning his face this way and that as he tugs on the lappets of the orange woolen bashlyk adorning his head. After a while, he pulls it off his head, a few strands of his hair sticking upwards like flames. 

The urge to mat them down snicks through Andrew, there and gone like a cloud of breath in cold air. He forces his attention away from Neil, spinning the sunglass rack and moving on to a keychain rack to do the same.

“Okay,” Neil says, “how about this one?” 

Andrew counts from one to ten in German. Clamping his jaw, he flicks his gaze over to Neil. This time, it’s a rabbit-themed cap, chalk-white with a pair of floppy ears on the sides and huge, sparkly eyes at the center. 

“Watch this,” Neil says, pumping the ends of the lappets. The rabbit’s ears jump upright. When he releases the lappets, the ears fold downwards, going limp once again. 

It is the most absurd thing Andrew has ever seen in his life. 

He’s confident that his face is just as expressionless as it always is, but for some reason, Neil laughs. 

His face scrunches up as his mouth splits into a smile, a breathy laughter shuddering out of him. There is a fragile quality to the sound, like Neil hasn’t quite mastered the art of laughing without any inhibition. 

“Yeah,” he says, all traces of his quiet laughter gone from his face, save the soft shape of his eyes, “I think I’ll get this one.”

They leave the store after Neil pays for the rabbit cap without even taking it off. The cap makes him look like a kid. Now that Andrew thinks about it, he can’t quite gauge Neil’s age. His rugged scars make him look older; weathered, but the impish twinkle in his baby-blue eyes belies his youth. His clothes - a hooded sweater, a denim jacket, a pair of sweatpants, and a pair of running shoes - also make him look young. 

Andrew abruptly stops walking. A few steps later, Neil stops too, looking over his shoulder at Andrew. 

“How old are you,” Andrew asks tonelessly.

“My, my, how forward of you.” Neil shifts closer, tilting his head a little. “I’ll tell you my age if you tell me yours. Just like we agreed earlier - a fair exchange.”

“I agreed to no such thing,” Andrew says, just to be difficult.

“Deal?” Neil presses.

Andrew stares at him, then gives a minute dip of his chin in a nod.

“I turned 30 in January.”

Andrew almost breathes out a sigh of relief. Instead, he simply says, “31.”

“Turning 32 this year?”

Andrew doesn’t answer, resuming walking. 

“I’ll take that as a ‘yes’,” Neil says, keeping up with him. “When’s your birthday?”

“Have you finally come up with a list of interrogative and scintillating questions to ask? Because your list is sounding woeful so far.”

Andrew isn’t looking at Neil, but he could feel him rolling his eyes. “And asking me my age was _so_ riveting. Hey -” Neil swerves into one of the shops lining the concourse - “let’s stop by this store.”

Andrew watches as Neil examines the magazine rack of the bookstore. One magazine cover boasts about snagging an exclusive interview with one of six known women in the world who can see the red string of fate. Another features a celebrity couple who did not find out they were soulmates until they were both in their mid-fifties. 

Leaving Neil, Andrew wanders inside, automatically going towards the fiction section. The choices are limited, but he rakes his eyes over the book spines until he finds the title he’s looking for. 

“A. Minyard,” Neil’s voice says from behind him. He barely suppresses a flinch. 

Neil stands next to him, whistling. “Never thought that my soulmate would be a best-selling author.” 

He reaches upwards and plucks Andrew’s book from the shelf. He cursorily scans the front and back before flipping through the pages and landing on the very last page. 

“‘A. Minyard is a bartender-turned-author who lives in San Francisco with his tabby, Sir Fat Cat McCatterson’,” Neil reads aloud. He looks up at Andrew, eyebrows raised. “You have a cat?”

Andrew merely stares back at him. 

“I do, too.” Neil pats down his pockets before fishing out his phone. He taps it and shows the lock screen to Andrew. It’s a picture of a cat with long, white fur and luminous green eyes. “Her name is Polynomial.” Neil unlocks his phone and taps on it a few times, then passes it to Andrew. “Here. You can look at pictures of her while I read a bit of your book.” 

Andrew’s brain is still stuck on the fact that Neil’s cat is named after a mathematical term; analyzing how easily Neil just gave him his phone and access to his gallery is currently a tall order for his brain. 

“It’s fine,” Neil says without even looking up from the book. “I don’t have anything to hide.” Then he reconsiders this, lips pursed. “Well, I don’t have anything to hide that can be found in my photo gallery, anyway.”

Having Neil read his book has Andrew feeling slightly vulnerable; he disregards it by swiping through the numerous photos of Neil’s cat. It also helps distract him from how Neil has the uncanny ability to accurately guess what he’s thinking. 

He is on the eighth photo when Neil says, “This is really good.”

Andrew, a sense of determination clustering in his chest, keeps his eyes on Neil’s phone. “Is that so.”

“That is very much so. I don’t really read novels, but I like this one. The prose is easy to follow and the main character is interesting.”

“I did not know that you were prone to flattery.”

“I’m just telling the truth.”

Andrew tosses Neil’s phone back at him; Neil deftly catches it with one hand. 

“Your opinion does not count as a truth,” he says crisply.

“Sure,” Neil returns breezily. “I’m going to buy this.” He goes to the front register with Andrew’s book before Andrew could say or do anything further.

Andrew doesn’t know if he has ever met anyone more _infuriating_ than his soulmate.

They continue meandering along the concourse, browsing through the stores. Most of the seating areas near the gates are swarmed with crowds of displeased and tired travellers. If the storm doesn’t clear up soon, the airport is probably going to have a mutiny in its hands. 

“Imagine if it continues blizzarding for a week,” Neil pipes up all of a sudden. “The food stock is running low, as are all the other supplies. What do you think is going to happen first?”

Andrew seriously considers this. Neil waits him out, his steps in sync with Andrew’s. 

“People will raid the stores.”

“Even though they know the stores don’t have any more food?”

Andrew nods. “People are stupid when they are desperate.”

“People are stupid, period,” Neil says in a sage tone.

Andrew’s lips minutely twitch in amusement, but he quells it before it could devolve into something more obvious. “And then they will start killing each other.”

“Because?” Neil prompts.

“Carnal rage.”

“Can’t argue with that logic.” Neil taps two fingers to his jaw as he thinks. It is a very nice jaw. “They would probably form factions before that. And the friction between them is what’s going to feed into that carnal rage.”

“There will at least be a few who will snap under the pressure and leave the airport despite the warnings.”

“And they’ll freeze to death,” Neil adds with a nod. “Not a very nice way to go. It’s better to have your brain blown out and have it be over before you even realize what’s happening.”

And Andrew thinks _he’s_ messed up.

“Weapons would not be easy to acquire,” Andrew says. “Unless.”

“Unless we find the place they use to stash all the confiscated stuff,” Neil finishes. “And the restaurants all have a few knives, so there’s that option too.”

“The security personnel have guns.”

“Even better. We’ll take them out first and steal those.”

“You have experience with firearms?”

Neil’s cryptic smirk makes a brief reappearance. “Wouldn’t you like to know?” 

Andrew barely stops himself from rolling his eyes. 

“We’ll use one of the premium lounges as our base,” Neil continues. “I hear they have very nice bathrooms there.”

“Down with the bourgeoisie,” Andrew says dispassionately.

“That’s the spirit.”

They analyze and discuss various other scenarios until they have done a full circuit of the terminal. Even then, they don’t stop talking. 

Andrew is surprised by how easy the words roll off his tongue. People have said that trying to get him to say one full sentence is like pulling teeth. Other than with his therapist and his friend Renee, he rarely speaks at all. He didn’t even begin talking to his twin brother until a couple of years ago, and even then, his responses are largely monosyllabic.

After their conversation winds down, they find a quiet place to sit. It’s an unmanned service desk near one of the gates, and they plop down onto the carpeted floor, their backs to the desk. 

With a sigh, Neil stretches his legs out, taking off his rabbit cap to comb his fingers through his hair. “You know, I thought that you would’ve gone as far away as you can from me by now, or that you would’ve just stayed clammed up and ignored me, which would’ve just made me say ‘fuck you’ and go as far away as I can from you.” He glances at Andrew, his half-smile wry and obnoxious. “No offense.”

“None taken,” Andrew says flatly. 

“Are we tolerating each other because we’re soulmates?” Neil says. “It really does make me wonder.”

Andrew doesn’t know how to respond to that, or how to feel about it. If the reason that he is not bored out of his skull when he is spending time with Neil is solely due to the fact that they are soulmates, it would make sense on an intuitive level. But if he dwells on it further, he finds it to be - unpleasant. Vexing, almost. 

He does not want to believe that the nature of his relationships hinges on something as arbitrary and boundless as fate. It makes him feel like nothing is within the parameter of his control, like his life and all the decisions he makes mean very little in the face of an ambiguous, intangible force. 

Maybe he just wants to believe that his compatibility with Neil is a product of their own willingness. The tiny, stupid, naive part of him that believes there must be _some_ point to all this is perhaps not as tiny as he likes to think. 

“Do you believe in fate, Neil?” he asks, blasé.

“Not really, no,” Neil answers gamely, even though Andrew had asked something very similar at the cafe.

“Luck, then.”

“Only the bad sort.”

“And yet you do not cease to ruminate over the notion of soulmates.”

“Has anybody ever told you that you speak like someone from a different time period altogether?” Neil deflects. When no reply comes, he slumps back against the desk, folding one leg against his chest and looping his arms around his knee. 

“I knew soulmates who killed each other because they hated each other, and I knew non-soulmates who were together because they _wanted_ to be together and worked for it,” Neil says. His gaze is quiescent, his voice hushed but potent - an impossible combination. “In the end, being soulmates doesn’t mean shit if you don’t actually choose each other and if you’re not willing to put any effort into it.”

“Is that what you’ve been doing, then?” Andrew probes. “Putting in effort?”

Neil rests his cheek on his knee, turning towards Andrew with a soft, peculiar expression on his face. “What do you think, Andrew?”

Andrew looks away, the words carved into the skin of his neck kindled like a low-burning fire. “Wouldn’t you like to know?” 

“I would. That’s why I asked.”

“Nobody likes a smart-mouth.”

Neil lifts his eyebrows. “Does that include you? And here I thought we were going somewhere with this.”

“I thought there was no ‘this’.”

This elicits a tiny upturn of Neil’s lips. He looks at Andrew for a while, then looks at him for a while longer, never saying a word. 

Andrew feels like his soul will catch on fire if Neil continues staring at him like that.

Neil pulls his gaze away. He smacks his lips and gets to his feet. 

“I’m feeling peckish,” he announces. “Let’s grab some food.”

Most of the restaurants are closed. The only food place that is still open is Texas Chicken, and they wordlessly eat their burgers as they stare out into the night, thick gusts of snow whipping against the windows. 

They resume strolling through the terminal after they’re finished with dinner. A few staff members are distributing blankets and pillows to the passengers, but Neil doesn’t seem enticed by any of it. He steps on a travelator, and Andrew mutely follows. 

Neil steps on the next travelator they encounter, and Andrew doesn’t question where they’re going, since all they have been doing is wander aimlessly. When Neil steps on the third travelator they come across, he spins around and walks in the direction opposite of the walkway, as if he is on a treadmill. 

With his hands in his pockets, he throws a half-smile Andrew’s way. Andrew doesn’t stand on the travelator, looking blankly at Neil.

Neil shrugs before turning so that he is facing the right direction. A little wary of Neil’s shenanigans, Andrew walks alongside the travelator, managing to keep up. 

Until Neil, without warning, bursts into a run. 

When he reaches the end of the walkway, he hops off it and grins at Andrew. 

“Wanna race?”

“I dislike running.”

“I’ll give you a handicap. You can be on the travelator.” Neil glances around, then drops his belongings on one of the many benches in the concourse. “We’ll leave our stuff here. Nobody’s around to take them, anyway.” His eyes are bright with mischief as he tries to coax Andrew into joining his stupid race. “Come on, it’ll be fun.”

“You might want to redefine your concept of fun.”

“It's not like we have anything better to do.”

Andrew bites back a sigh. He leaves his bags with Neil’s, then positions himself so that he is right at the beginning of the travelator. 

“On three,” Neil says. “One, two -” 

As soon as he says _three_ , he breaks into a sprint across the concourse. Andrew can’t even hope to catch up, despite the travelator lending him some speed.

When he reaches the end of the travelator, Neil is grinning again, all pearly-white teeth and crescent-shaped eyes. 

“Wasn’t that refreshing?”

“You are a heathen,” Andrew tells him.

They return to their bags and continue walking at a reasonable pace. 

Until Neil, without warning, stops in his tracks. He is looking at a row of trolleys, a slow smile spreading over his lips. 

Andrew, having an inkling to what he is thinking of, resigns himself to his fate.

*

They take turns pushing each other on a trolley for about an hour, dashing back and forth across a stretch of the terminal. 

Andrew thinks that he might be having fun, and tries to remember the last time he felt even a semblance of exhilaration coursing through his veins. After they wear themselves out, they find another unmanned service desk near a gate, the area surrounding it empty except for a few travellers who are already asleep. Instead of settling against the desk, however, Neil parks his bags near the floor-to-ceiling windows. He lays flat on his back, his duffel bag pillowing his head, and stares out the windows. Slowly, Andrew sits beside Neil with his legs crossed. He takes out the cigarette stick that he stowed into his pocket earlier and clamps it between his lips. 

“Do you like being an author?” Neil asks without preamble.

Andrew debates over whether or not he wants to give Neil an answer. In the end, he says, “I do not hate it.”

Neil snorts. “What were you doing here in Chicago, anyway? Was it for work?”

Andrew hums, non-committal. 

It was for a book signing event. Sometimes, he has Aaron take his place when he has to go on book tours, but Aaron has already been to four cities this year in his stead. He is running low on bargaining chips, so he had opted to fly out to Chicago and deal with hours of signing books, staring emptily at his fans’ phones as they take selfies with him, and tuning out his agent’s grievances about his lack of gallantry.

“Me too,” Neil says. “I had to audit this wack company and spend two weeks here.”

Andrew blinks, twice. “You are an auditor.”

“I am.” Neil crosses his ankles and folds his hands over his stomach, getting more comfortable on the floor. 

In all honesty, Andrew never would have guessed. 

“And what is waiting for you in San Francisco?”

“A fresh slew of financial records.”

“How fun.”

Neil turns his head so that he can look at Andrew. “And you think _I_ have to redefine my concept of fun.” He makes a clicking noise, then says, “Well, I like my job, so you’re not entirely wrong. And I like San Francisco, so there’s that.” 

Andrew removes the cigarette from his mouth, turning it over between his fingers. “And where is home?”

Neil rolls over to lay on his side. His hair is disheveled, his eyes keen and vivid. The air around them is still, as if they are suspended in time. 

“Seattle,” Neil says quietly, a forlorn quality to his voice. “Don’t know if I can call it home, though.”

Andrew remains silent, eyes never leaving Neil.

“You know,” Neil starts, curling and uncurling his fingers and studying them, “I used to hate airports. They made me nervous. But when I started my job and began travelling all the time, I somehow grew fond of them.”

He likes the snow, he likes running, and he likes airports. Truly, he is an odd man of outlandish tastes.

“I don’t know,” Neil says, “I just think there’s something unique about them. Probably because they’re liminal spaces.”

Andrew hums again, conceding to the point. 

“What about you?” Neil asks. “Do you like airports?”

Clenching his jaw, Andrew looks out the windows, staring at the airplane that’s docked near the gate.

“I do not like flying.”

“Hmm. Do you like driving?”

Andrew raises a shoulder in a half-hearted shrug; he does like driving, but he has never been prone to admitting an inclination for anything. 

“Driving causes higher mortality rates than flying, if that helps,” Neil supplies.

Andrew shoots him a stony look. The corner of Neil’s mouth hitches into the barest of smiles, gentle as snow. Andrew tears his gaze away, but he knows that it is useless; the image is already branded into his memories, like all the other expressions he has seen on Neil’s face today.

Neil yawns. He checks the time on his wristwatch and says, “It’s past 12. Huh.” 

He stretches a little, his sweater riding up to expose a strip of skin on his midriff. Andrew catches a glimpse of the criss-crossing scars on his stomach, and it makes him wonder if there is any part of Neil left that is untouched by such severity.

“I feel so old sometimes. I used to be able to function on 2 hours of sleep, but now I can barely keep my eyes open past 10 at night.” Neil releases a pleased sigh, a contradictory sound to his complaints. “Getting older is nice.”

A very odd man, indeed. 

Neil pulls his hood up over his head and curls up into a ball on the floor. His eyes fall shut, his mouth slightly parted. 

“Good night, Andrew,” he mumbles, perfectly content with sleeping on the floor of an airport next to a man he barely knows.

Andrew watches as Neil’s breathing evens out. Then he puts his cigarette away, shucks off his coat, and shapes it into a lump so he can use it as a pillow. He lays down, an arm’s length away from Neil, and wonders if they will be strangers again once tomorrow comes.

*

Neil wakes up before Andrew does.

Andrew cracks his eyes open to find Neil sitting cross-legged in front of the windows, eyes closed as the sun’s rays spill over him in golden warmth. 

“Morning,” Neil says, without even looking at Andrew. Slowly, his eyes flutter open. His shoulders droop down a little as he exhales through his mouth. “It’s stopped snowing.”

“You sound over the moon,” Andrew comments.

Neil huffs out a laugh. Andrew finds himself feeling inexplicably satisfied.

“Let’s find breakfast,” Neil says.

Before they do, they stop by a restroom to freshen themselves up. They wash their faces and brush their teeth next to each other, Neil intermittently looking at Andrew in the mirror with foam in his mouth and crinkles at the corner of his eyes.

It feels strangely homely, almost as familiar and comforting as the knitted sweater Andrew has had since college.

A few of the stores are open, including the cafe they visited yesterday. A different staff member rings up their order this time, and they get the same booth they had before.

They eat their croissants, they drink their coffees, and they exchange mindless quips. Before Andrew realizes it, it is time for them to walk through the terminal for one final lap to find their gate and prepare for boarding. 

“Where’s your seat?” Neil asks.

Andrew shows him his boarding pass. 

“That’s probably a window seat,” Neil guesses. “I’ll be up front.” 

Andrew quirks an eyebrow at this.

“Since the company is paying for it, I might as well get a seat in first-class,” Neil says with a shrug. He meets Andrew’s eyes, his lips stretched into a faint, genuine smile. “I guess this is goodbye.”

Andrew’s hands curl into fists at his sides. He drops his gaze to Neil’s chest and says, “I guess it is.”

“We might bump into each other in San Francisco when we land,” Neil says. “Or - who knows? - maybe we’ll bump into each other on the street.”

Andrew doesn’t say anything in response.

“Well, it’s been nice killing time with you. I promise to finish reading your book, and when you write a new one, I’ll read that too.”

Andrew shifts his gaze so he is looking at Neil in the eyes again. There is something on Neil’s face that he can’t quite decipher, but it compels him to say something.

“Flight D0310 with direct service to San Francisco is now ready for boarding,” a voice announces before Andrew can open his mouth. “We would like to invite our first-class passengers and frequent fliers to board the aircraft.”

“That’s me,” Neil says, hiking the strap of his bag higher up on his shoulder. His voice is softer when he says, “It was nice meeting you, Andrew. I know I’ve said that I don’t care much about soulmates, but I’m glad I got to meet mine, and I’m glad that it’s you.”

He turns and joins the queue to board the plane. Andrew’s heart is lodged in his throat, blocking his airway like a cork.

He should let this be their natural parting. That way, he could continue living his life the way he has always lived it. That way, he could savor the fact that he chose to be alone, that fate does not have control over who has a place in his life, that only he has the power and choice to do that. That way, he could save Neil from the burden of having Andrew Minyard as a soulmate. 

It is easier to be alone. It is easier to resign himself to the fact that he will always be alone. They are made for themselves, and only with their own hands can they make themselves whole. 

It is with this thought in mind that Andrew pitches forward and reaches out, with his own hand, towards the shape of Neil’s back. 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> waddup i'm jared i'm 19 and i never learned how to write a soulmate AU. but i've been stranded at various airports on way too many occasions so i guess it evens things out. let me know what you think of this fic!
> 
> My [tumblr](http://nakasomethingkun.tumblr.com).


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